Never Do
by sue-sylvester-shuffle
Summary: Liz takes advantage of her immunity to the flu by taking care of a very sick Kenneth. Takes place in season three, 'Flu Shot'.


Liz looked around the costume rack hastily for something, _anything, _that would cover the telltale red dot on her right forearm. An old sweater, a jacket, she didn't care…

She pushed through a second rack of clothes. But to her surprise, there was someone curled up, asleep, behind it. Liz gasped. It was _Kenneth._

The page sat up. "I wasn't resting." Although he was looking at her, his blue eyes were not completely focused. "A Parcell man never lies down on the job. Unless… that job involves milking pig teats." He squinted at Liz's arm. "Ms Lemon, what is that?"

Liz clapped her hand over the mark, her heart beating in her throat.

"Did you… did you get the shot?"

"No!" she exclaimed, thinking quickly. "This is a dream! You're having a fever dream." She flipped anxiously through the rack as she spoke. "We're speaking French, and I'm your mother."

_His mother? _Liz inwardly cursed herself as she pulled on a dusty TGS sweater. She had to stop thinking of Kenneth as her son- as someone she needed to protect. He was _fine._ Well… no, he wasn't. His face, once bright and cheerful, was pale and covered with a slight sheen of sweat. Liz wished she could just bring him back to her place and take care of him.

"Oh, okay. _Maman, pourquoi? Pourquoi as-tu laissez?_" Kenneth babbled, his French surprisingly fluent despite his high fever.

Liz sighed. She had the flu shot now; she couldn't get sick, no matter how long she stayed around the sick page. And, since she felt awful about getting the shot anyway, maybe this was the best way to help the people who had _not _been so fortunate. Namely, Kenneth.

She gathered as much of her high school French as she could and replied, "_Je ne laissez pas, Kenneth._"

"_Serieusement?_"

Liz nodded. "Really." she said softly, dropping the French and hoping that he would, too. She rushed over to a third rack and pulled on a dusty black sweater before approaching Kenneth again. As carefully as she could, the dark-haired writer scooped him up, with one arm under his knees and the other under his neck. Kenneth coughed pitifully as she carried him out of the costume room, and toward the elevator.

"Where are we going, Ms Lemon?" mumbled the blonde page weakly as the elevator doors opened, and Liz brought him inside.

"My office." she told him. "You can sleep on the couch."

"Sleep?" Kenneth looked shocked. "Oh, no, Ms Lemon. I can't _sleep. _I'm the only page who hasn't gone home sick. I have to help everyone." He rolled out of her arms and stood up, swaying slightly. The sudden movement made him cough harshly, and Liz put her hand on his shoulder to steady him.

"No, Kenneth." she said sternly. "You're too overworked for a _healthy _person, let alone someone with a bad case of the flu. If you keep working, it'll kill you. The others can take care of themselves." Some of the severity fell away from her voice as she added, "Now come on." The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open. Liz led him out into the hallway, and to the writers' room, where her office was.

She sat Kenneth down on the couch as soon as they got inside. "I think I have a thermometer somewhere in here. Just gimme a minute."

"But Ms Lemon," Kenneth protested, his gaze following her unorganized search around the office. "I don't want you getting sick, too."

"Oh, don't worry, Kenneth." Liz said distractedly, groping around the top of her bookshelf. "I won't."

"What?"

Liz froze, her heart stopping dead in her chest. _Oh no. _If he found out she'd gotten the flu shot… "Won't _mind._" she corrected herself. "I, uh, won't mind if I get sick."

"Oh."

Liz exhaled shakily. Thank goodness he wasn't very bright. The high fever probably wasn't helping, either.

Just then, her fingers brushed past something hard and cold. "I think I've found it." she informed him, pulling it down. A half-eaten box of _very _old crackers and a broken purple slinky fell unceremoniously to the ground, but her old thermometer came down as well. She wiped it off on her sweater before sitting down on the couch next to the blonde page.

He stared at it. "Is… is it a _mouth _thermometer, Ms Lemon?"

Liz laughed. "Yes, Kenneth, it is. Now open up."

Kenneth opened his mouth, and she stuck the thermometer under his tongue. He frowned. "It'th cold." he complained, his words distorted by the glass stick in his mouth.

Liz smirked, and waited for the thermometer to finish. She pulled it out about a minute later and squinted at it.

"102." she read, and frowned.

He saw her frown and looked worried. "Is… is that _bad, _Ms Lemon? Do I have to go to the… the _hospital? _Because they always laugh at my birth certificate there."

"No, I don't think you need to be hospitalized unless your temperature is 105 or something like that." Liz reassured him. "It means that you need to rest and stuff, Kenneth. That's all."

"Okay." Kenneth said.

"I think there's some medicine out there, so you just get comfortable and I'll get it. Alright?"

The blonde page nodded. "I will. Thank you, Ms Lemon… you're being so nice to me, I don't know how I can ever repay you."

Liz smiled warmly. "Oh, don't worry about that, Kenneth. It's what friends are for, right?" She suppressed adding a comment about how she thought of him like he was her son, and how she felt responsible for him.

A wide grin spread across his face- now _that _was the Kenneth she knew and loved. "Friends." he repeated. "We're _friends?_"

"Of course." Liz grinned back, and headed out into the writers' room. Just as she'd thought, there was some medicine on the table, probably left by one of her fellow writers who had caught the same flu. She picked it up, along with a spoon, and went back into her office.

There, she measured out the amount of medicine- a thick, dark pink substance- onto the spoon, which she offered out to Kenneth. He took it gingerly. As soon as he'd swallowed, he made a face. "Oh, _my! _That tastes worse than raw chicken eggs in the morning!"

Liz sniffed the top of the bottle. "Good God." she hissed, quoting Jack without even knowing it. "That's horrible. What is that flavour, anyway? Horse crap?"

"Intestines?" suggested Kenneth.

Liz peered at the bottle. "Cherry." she read. "Oh, that's _bull! _That does _not _smell like cherries at _all_."

He giggled. And then, as he opened his mouth to respond, he yawned.

Liz put down the offending bottle of medicine and said, "Why don't you take a nap? You seem pretty tired."

"Alright." Kenneth nodded, and curled up on the couch, looking much like the shivering little lump he had been before, hiding behind the costume racks. "Goodnight, Ms Lemon."

"Goodnight, Kenneth." Liz leaned down and planted a kiss on his forehead. "Feel better soon. I'll be back soon."

Although the last thing she wanted was to leave the ailing page, she was still at work, and with everyone being sick, there was more work to do than ever.

When she reached the shooting area, Liz found that a crowd had formed around the stage. Curious, the bespectacled writer pushed through and stared in disbelief at what was in front of her.

Jenna and Tracy, dressed from head to toe as clowns, were dancing for the ill TGS team, who looked remarkably unimpressed. Old-timey circus music was playing all around. Liz huffed, and stepped up onto the stage. "Really? Do you _really _think this is helping?"

The next thing she knew, Jenna had whipped a cream pie right into her face. Liz squeaked in shock. Someone from behind shouted indignantly, "Hey! Leave her alone!"

The dark-haired woman had just peeled off her glasses, sticky with pie filling, when the crowd began to rally with the first man. "Yeah!" they called.

"Wait. Why aren't you laughing?" asked Tracy cluelessly, as Liz took off her blue sweater, trying to rub some of the cream off of her face. "This is happening to _Liz!_"

"No, they _love _Liz now." she informed him. "Everybody _likes _me. It's _you _two idiots-"

"Hey." It was the first man again. "What's that on your arm?"

Liz looked down at her forearm, realizing her mistake seconds too late

"She got a flu shot! She… she _lied _to us!"

"Give us back our meat plate!"

"No, guys! Listen, you don't understand!" Liz exclaimed, her voice far too high and fast. It sounded foreign, even to her own ears. "This _vacation-_"

"You sold us out for a vacation?"

"No! Not just any vacation. This one has _beach socks _and _ice cream _and _sandwich turtles-_"

The crowd groaned.

"I've worked so hard, guys. Don't I deserve to sit on a beach?" she pleaded.

But everyone was already done with her. They dispersed, taking Liz's newfound popularity with them. A sigh escaped her, and she stepped down from the stage, licking pie cream off of the sweater. She felt terrible about having lied to everyone. Especially _Kenneth. _How was she going to face him again?

Liz decided to cross that bridge when she came to it. She stopped by the ladies' bathroom on her way, to clean the pie from her face, and the costume room, to leave the ruined sweater, and to grab a new one. Part of her considered leaving the mark out for all to see- Kenneth deserved to know what she'd done, didn't he- but she knew he'd leave if he saw that she'd gotten the flu shot, and he was in no condition to be out and about on his own. So she pulled on a pale pink jacket that said 'Hot Stuff' on the back. Liz laughed at the crude message as she rode the elevator up to the writers' room.

When she entered her office, Liz saw that Kenneth was asleep on the couch. However, something seemed to be wrong. The blonde page's face was contorted with pain, his hands gripping the side of the couch like a lifeline.

Liz knelt down next to him and gingerly felt his forehead. Instantly, concern shot through her. His fever had risen. Any higher, and it could mean hospitalization. Hastily, she grabbed a half-empty water bottle from her desk, and took the 'Hot Stuff' jacket off. It didn't matter if her mark was visible now. She poured water onto the pink jacket, ignoring the puddle of wetness forming on the ground, and dabbed at his forehead, which was damp with sweat.

_None of this would've happened if _he _had gotten the flu shot, _Liz thought bitterly. _Him, and not you. _She bit her lip, feeling like she was going to cry.

Just then, one of Kenneth's clammy hands shot out and latched around her wrist. Liz gasped, almost dropping the soaking jacket. He was mumbling something inaudible. She didn't think much of it- just incoherent, feverish babble- until he managed to say it _just _loud enough that she could hear.

"Momma."

Liz's heart leapt into her throat, and she could hardly breathe. In his adorable, Southern way, had he just called her his _mother? _Of course, he probably thought that his real mother was taking care of him- he didn't recognize Liz as just his co-worker through his fever. But it still made Liz feel ecstatic. Her maternal instincts towards the page were questionable at best, but that didn't matter to her. Nothing mattered right then, except for Kenneth.

After a few more minutes of trying to cool him down, it worked, much to the dark-haired writer's relief. He seemed to relax a bit, and his round face settled back into a sleeping smile. Liz let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. She brushed his damp hair from his pale face, and kissed him on the forehead. Just as she was getting up and heading over to her desk, she heard Kenneth whisper hoarsely, "Ms Lemon?"

Liz turned around. He was squinting up at her, half-sitting, propped up on his elbows. "Hi, Kenneth." she said, coming back and sitting down beside the couch again. "How are you feeling?"

"Like one of the pigs we used to boil back home in Georgia." he answered tiredly. "Oh, I just had the strangest dream, Ms Lemon. I dreamt that my momma was here. Here! In New York!"

Liz nodded, and tried to look interested, although she felt like her heart was being strangled.

The blonde page sighed. "I do miss my momma. But I have _you, _Ms Lemon."

Liz could hardly breathe. "What did you say, Kenneth?"

He shrugged. "Well, you're always so nice to me. And it was mighty thoughtful of you, taking care of me like you did."

"Oh, it was nothing!" Liz grinned. Elation was forming inside of her, like a balloon being blown up to full size inside of her chest. _He had her. _He missed his mother, but _he had her. _"Hey. What do you say, when everyone goes home, you come back to my place and we can watch a movie or something? You can stay the night, if you want." She still didn't want him to have to be alone, especially if his fever was going to spike again.

Kenneth's blue eyes lit up. "Like a _sleepover?_"

Liz chuckled. "Yeah. Like a sleepover."

He grinned widely. "Because we're _friends._" He giggled. "We're _friends. _I love that. _Friends. _I can't stop saying it!"

"Never do, Kenneth." Liz said softly. "Never do."

end


End file.
